CryptoLink - March 2024 Updates

In the House, lawmakers continue to make progress on the Clarity for Stablecoins Act (H.R. 4766). On March 19, at a press event hosted by Punchbowl News on the policy landscape for digital payments, outgoing House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry (R-NC) said that he and Committee Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA) would be able to secure passage of his stablecoins bill if they had a legislative vehicle. The comments build on similarly optimistic assessments McHenry made in February on the state of a nascent deal over the legislation, including that he and Waters had come to terms and were just awaiting Biden administration buy-in. Later at the same Punchbowl News event, McHenry praised the longstanding bipartisan effort by his Senate colleagues Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) to whip support for their crypto bill, the Lummis-Gillibrand Responsible Financial Innovation Act (S.2281). McHenry said the bill – which was re-introduced in 2023 after being initially introduced in the 117th Congress and would provide regulatory guardrails for the industry, enhanced consumer protections and beefed up anti–money laundering (AML) tools to combat illicit finance – was one he took quite seriously. McHenry stated that "We've got a good understanding across the Capitol" on the two parallel crypto bills.